Saving Lives at Sea - Netflix

Editor

Documentary following the men and women of the Royal National Lifeboat
Institution (RNLI).

Type: Documentary

Languages: English

Status: Running

Runtime: 60 minutes

Premier: 2016-07-13

Saving Lives at Sea - Saving Private Ryan - Netflix

Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American epic war film directed by Steven
Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. Set during the Invasion of
Normandy in World War II, the film is notable for its graphic portrayal
of war, and for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which includes
a depiction of the Omaha Beach assault during the Normandy landings. It
follows United States Army Rangers Captain John H. Miller (Tom Hanks)
and a squad (Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi,
Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, and Jeremy Davies) as they search for a
paratrooper, Private First Class James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon), who is
the last-surviving brother of four servicemen. The film was a
significant critical and commercial success, grossing $216.8 million
domestically, making it the highest-grossing film of 1998 in the United
States, and $481.8 million worldwide, making it the
second-highest-grossing film of 1998 worldwide. The film was nominated
for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture; Spielberg's direction won
his second Academy Award for Best Director, with four more awards going
to the film. Saving Private Ryan was released on home video in May 1999,
earning another $44 million from sales. In 2014, the film was selected
for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of
Congress, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant.”

Saving Lives at Sea - Critical response - Netflix

The film received critical acclaim and has a 'certified fresh' rating of
92% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 132 reviews with an average score of 8.6
out of 10. The consensus states “Anchored by another winning performance
from Hanks, Spielberg's unflinchingly realistic war film virtually
redefines the genre.” The film also has a score of 90 out of 100 on
Metacritic based on 35 critic reviews indicating “universal acclaim”.
Much of the praise went for the realistic battle scenes and the actors'
performances. However, it did earn some criticism for ignoring the
contributions of several other countries to the D-Day landings in
general and at Omaha Beach specifically. The most direct example of the
latter is that during the actual landing the 2nd Rangers disembarked
from British ships and were taken to Omaha Beach by Royal Navy landing
craft (LCAs). The film depicts them as being United States Coast
Guard-crewed craft (LCVPs and LCMs) from an American ship, the USS
Thomas Jefferson (APA-30). This criticism was far from universal with
other critics recognizing the director's intent to make an “American”
film. The film was not released in Malaysia after Spielberg refused to
cut the violent scenes; however, the film was finally released there on
DVD with an 18SG certificate much later in 2005. Many critics
associations, such as New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film
Critics Association, chose Saving Private Ryan as Film of the Year.
Roger Ebert gave it four stars out of four and called it “a powerful
experience”. Filmmaker Robert Altman wrote a letter to Spielberg
stating, “Private Ryan was awesome -- best I've seen.” Filmmaker Quentin
Tarantino has expressed admiration for the film and has cited it as an
influence on his 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds. Many World War II
veterans stated that the film was the most realistic depiction of combat
they had ever seen. The film was so realistic that combat veterans of
D-Day and Vietnam left theaters rather than finish watching the opening
scene depicting the Normandy invasion. Their visits to posttraumatic
stress disorder counselors rose in number after the film's release, and
many counselors advised “'more psychologically vulnerable'” veterans to
avoid watching it. The Department of Veterans Affairs set up a
nationwide hotline for veterans who were affected by the film, and less
than two weeks after the film was released it had already received over
170 calls. The film has gained criticism and negative reviews from some
war veterans and film critics. Film director and military veteran Oliver
Stone has accused the film of promoting “the worship of World War II as
the good war,” and has placed it alongside films such as Gladiator and
Black Hawk Down that he believes were well-made, but may have
inadvertently contributed to Americans' readiness for the 2003 invasion
of Iraq. In defense of the film's portrait of warfare, Brian De Palma
commented, “The level of violence in something like Saving Private Ryan
makes sense because Spielberg is trying to show something about the
brutality of what happened.” Actor Richard Todd, who performed in The
Longest Day and was amongst the first of the Allied soldiers to land in
Normandy (Operation Tonga), said the film was “Rubbish. Overdone.”
American academic Paul Fussell, who saw combat in France during World
War II, objected to what he described as, “the way Spielberg's Saving
Private Ryan, after an honest, harrowing, 15-minute opening visualizing
details of the unbearable bloody mess at Omaha Beach, degenerated into a
harmless, uncritical patriotic performance apparently designed to thrill
12-year-old boys during the summer bad-film season. Its genre was pure
cowboys and Indians, with the virtuous cowboys of course victorious.”